Celebration of the 59th anniversary of Victory Day, 19 March 1962

Algeria is celebrating today its national Victory Day, 19 March 1962, a key milestone of the Algerian People’s struggle to recover its sovereignty. After a bitter and ongoing battle against the French occupier, the latter was forced to negotiate its defeat with the representatives of the Algerian People, the National Liberation Front (FLN).

This 19 March 1962 marked the day when the ceasefire between the Provisional Government of the Algerian Republic (GPRA) and the occupiers’ government was enforced, thus ending a drama of injustice that had lasted for 132 years, and finally paving the way to the proclamation of Algeria’s independence on 5 July 1962.

The Evian negotiations that brought my country’s victory are the culmination of the determination of millions of oppressed Algerians, strong with the legitimacy of their cause, to recover their independence. They accepted to pay a heavy toll of million and a half Martyrs in order to put an end forever to the long colonial night imposed on their blessed land and its corollaries such as poverty, underdevelopment, and the denial of a millennial culture and history.